Thoughts on diversity

OK, I was holding off until the end of the week to post my thoughts on diversity at Purdue and since today is the end of my week.. here goes!

I first thought of proposing the idea for people to post about diversity after seeing the word pop up in the headlines of the Exponent several times already throughout this short semester. I don't actually read the Exponent, so I'm not sure what the articles say but I do know this isn't the first time that I've heard that word come up. Is there a diversity problem at Purdue? Is there any more of a diversity problem here than there is anywhere else?

I've lived a fairly sheltered life growing up in a town of 21,000 and then living in various parts of Indianapolis. I've traveled to Miami and Chicago on numerous occasions. I've seen huge differences in the levels of diversity when comparing those two big cities to my small hometown. Judging from that, I think that Purdue lies somewhere between the two. It is a hundred times more diverse than almost 98% of the communities in the world. It's definitely not as diverse as the big cities. But, is that really to be expected?

I'm sitting outside of Stanley Coulter enjoying this beautiful fall day. I sat and watched people pass by for several minutes before turning on my laptop. I'd say out of all of the people that walked by, less than 25% of them were white. I'm going to look up...right now... 6 people walking by- two white women, an Asian female, two Asian males and one Western Asian(India area) male. Let's try it again in another minute...
OK, 4 people walking by, two black males, one black female and one white female.
And again (including people sitting and standing around) two white males, one white female, two Asian men, and a couple that appears to be from a "Latin-American" area- and, right as I was looking down a black male walking with two white females.

So, from that small sampling, I'd say that's pretty diverse. There was even an unusually large number of people from different backgrounds associating with each other.

Are all people treated the same? I would guess that once they reach college, they would be. I have heard charges of racism from black people and white people. I know a guy from India who says some TAs treat him unfairly but then he ends up with a 4.0 every semester.

Are all people recruited the same? Again, I don't know. Do they have the same financial ability to pay for school- I'm sure the answer is no. Do all people have the same educational opportunities before getting to school? Again, I know from my classes that answer is no. But, I also know that the College of Education is teaching their teachers to try to change that. Whether or not any of those graduates go teach in schools where the extra help is needed or not is yet to be seen. From what I've heard, probably not.
One last time before class... OK- we've got two Russian men talking right in front of me, there is a black guy with a HUGE afro, six white males (people are pouring out of WTHR), six white females, three Asian males and two Asian females, there's a group of four black guys and two black girls, five white males and three white females, another Asian male, two black females, another Asian male and female, two ROTC guys (white, of course), another Asian male and female, three white girls walking individually, a short white guy in a suit, followed by a fat white guy in a suit, another Asian guy, five sorority girls (white), an Asian girl and a white girl with two elementary aged white girls, a black guy....